The dried leaves beneath their feet crunched with every step they took. Aang, Katara, Zuko, Toph, and Suki all followed Sokka's lead through a state park, with little idea as to where their end destination was. The sun shone down brightly on them, but not enough to cause humidity, and a few clouds spotted the skies. All in all, for the end of August it was a nice day.

Aang, however was still not happy with their adventure. Sokka had rambled on about some sort of ghost hunting expedition, while Aang would have much rather preferred a safer, less-terrifying game of kickball.

"Guys, I really don't think this is a good idea," Aang said finally, quickening his pace to catch up to Katara.

"You said the same thing about the lake, and you ended up having a great time," Sokka said, shutting down his comment.

"For the record, I did not have fun," Toph said.

"This is probably illegal, what if we get caught?" Zuko spoke up. "I think I'm going to side with Aang on this one."

Sokka groaned and brought his fast-paced strides to a halt. "Listen, all the gut-less babies can stay behind with the whine-lord and the peace maker, everyone else can come with me."

"Sokka, I really don't see why we can't just stay home like we usually do and eat snacks all day. You love eating snacks!" Katara offered.

Sokka sighed and Suki patted his back. "Maybe they're right, let's just go home," she said.

"So you're taking their side with this?" Sokka exclaimed.

Suki smiled bashfully and shrugged.

"Listen everyone, I've been thinking about this for a while. Zuko's off to school in a week, and this is the only day he has off work. Once the school year starts up again, Aang won't have any free time with all his wishy-washy extra-curricular activities; and Toph has to go away to her school like Zuko! This is the last chance we may have to all be together until winter break or maybe next summer; a whole year. I don't want to spend another lame day inside doing nothing!"

Everyone was silent.

"But why here? Why can't we go to the park or something?" Zuko asked.

"Hey dummy, we are in a park. But I already looked this morning at the other one, looks like some kid's birthday party. I don't want to babysit," Sokka said, folding his arms.

"Well your logic isn't deniable, but can I get a run over of what exactly we're doing again?" Aang asked.

Sokka groaned dramatically, "If I must." He took a deep breath and straightened his back. "Back there about a mile," he pointed to the woods behind his back, "is an abandoned part of town. There's a cemetery that dates back as early as the 1700's! That's unheard of anymore! And they've got some buildings back there too, not as old but still just as awesome! I thought we could just take a peek at that stuff for ourselves; see why it's abandoned in the first place."

"So...breaking and entering." Zuko gave Sokka an exasperated look. "Yep, illegal. Called it."

"It's not illegal, no one's there!"

Zuko was about to retort when Suki placed a hand on Sokka's shoulder and locked eyes with Zuko. "I think it sounds like a fun time. Besides, Aang even said so, his logic isn't deniable."

"Ha! See! Suki is the only one with sense around here!" Sokka said, gesturing to Suki with exaggerated arm movements.

Katara giggled. "You just admitted it yourself, you have no sense." Aang chuckled and gave her a high-five.

"Hey!" Toph called out. Everyone's attention was quickly cast to her. "Listen, I love standing around rambling pointlessly, but Sokka's plan sounds way cool. Count me in, Butthead!" She threw an excited fist in the air.

Katara sighed and turned to her brother. "I'm not about to let you get hurt, count me in."

Aang looked at Katara, and then at Sokka. "I'm in," he said.

Everyone turned to Zuko. He cast them all disgusted looks, and then face-palmed. "I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"Glad you came to your senses!" Toph said, elbowing him in the gut. He doubled over and felt as if he were going to throw up. "Onwards...again!" she exclaimed.

And so the gang followed Sokka's lead at the command of Toph. They joked and played as they marched through the woods. Aang couldn't help but notice the foliage grow thinner and thinner as they continued, and the air grew quieter with an absence of song birds and insects. He cast these thoughts to the back of his mind and joined in with his friends in their merry-making.

After about half an hour's worth of marching through what looked like the same scene of trees, bushes, and other assorted undergrowth repeated endlessly-Katara finally pointed out something of interest. "Sokka, that sign says "private property." Do you realize what you're doing?" she asked. She pointed at a rusty and well-worn sign nailed to a tree a few yards ahead of her.

Sokka shrugged. "Don't worry about it Katara, like I said; this place is abandoned! Even if it were a privately owned property at one point, the previous owner obviously didn't care enough to keep it that way. It's practically like they're inviting trespassers! Er, I mean, adventuring, well-meant, respectable teenagers!"

Katara groaned and gave him a dirty look. "I don't even know why I try anymore." She folded her arms and her steps became shorter.

"It's okay Katara, we don't really know why you try either," Aang said, casting her a reassuring, unknowing smile. There were a few snickers from those who misinterpreted Aang's well wishes.

Katara rolled her eyes and turned away from them. In the far background of the series of trees, her eyes picked up movement. "Did you guys see that? I think it was a deer."

"Yeah, okay Katara. I thought you were smarter than that. You're gonna have to try a little harder than that to scare us," Sokka said, dismissing her comment with a chuckle.

"What? No, I really saw something."

"Come on Katara, we were just talking about this last week. How the city had to kill off all the deer in this park due to some illness," Aang said.

Katara glanced back at him, realization hitting her. She nodded, and pondered quietly what it was she had seen.

A few short minutes later, they came to a metal chain link fence that stood six feet high, and was topped with barbed wire. It was badly rusted, and the bottom of the fence curled a foot off the ground, like fence itself was trying not to touch the ground.

"Do you think it's electric?" Aang asked.

"It's not, well, it shouldn't be," Sokka said, uncertain. "Well it wasn't the last time I was here."

"Well, this was your idea. I think you should be the one to test it out," Toph said.

"It doesn't matter if it's electric, only the top wire would sho-" Zuko began, before Katara jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

"That's a good question Aang," she said, and Aang smiled proudly. "And Toph brings up a point. If it is electric and has the potential to shock us, you should be the one to test it out. It was your idea to bring us here, after all."

Worry crossed Aang's face. "Isn't there some way to tell if a fence is electric before touching it and risking injury?" Aang asked.

"Nope, no way. the only way to tell is if you touch it," Katara said quickly. Zuko came to realization of her game and stifled a chuckle.

"I can do a quick google search," Suki offered, pulling out her smart phone. Zuko put his hand over the screen. "No, Katara's right. It's the only way."

"Guess this is your time to shine Sparks," Toph said, smiling deviously.

Sokka looked at the fence weakly.

"Come on, I've done it before, it doesn't even hurt," Zuko said.

Sokka inched closer to the fence and took an overdramatic gulp. He raised his hand and moved it for the fence. Aang bit his lip worriedly and Zuko became increasingly agitated.

"If you won't do it, I WILL!" He exclaimed, and stormed to the fence.

"No!" Sokka shouted and pushed him back. He grabbed the fence purposely and was greeted by no sensation other than the cold feel of the metal and some rust residue on his hand.

There was a collective sigh of relief between Suki, Aang, and Sokka. He removed his hand and rubbed it on his t shirt. "Yep. Handled like a true man." He flexed, Suki giggled, and everyone else groaned.

"Great, let's keep moving. That barbed wire at the top is going to hurt, looks like we're going to have to crawl," Zuko said.

Toph groaned.

"It's okay Toph, I'll help you out," Zuko said.

"Yay me," she grumbled.

Zuko held the fence up for everyone as they crawled through, one by one. Suki helped Toph from the other side, gently holding her wrists to lead her through. As Zuko made his way through, Katara did her best to try to hold the fence for him, but it proved to be little help from this side. She gave up as he was just about through and he let out a yelp and darted out from the fence as she let go.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" She said, helping him onto his feet.

"Don't worry about it. I don't think it was your fault."

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"I let go of the fence and it snapped back and poked Zuko!" Katara said, embarrassed.

"Really, you're fine. I think it was just because of how tall I am, not you letting go. Anyways, let's keep going."

They continued forward, and now the lack of life was impossible to ignore, the woods were awfully thin now, with less half as many trees as there were before, and no underbrush. Grass wasn't blanketing the ground either, but instead poked up in small blades of yellow and tan.

"This doesn't look abandoned to me," Aang said, noting a large coil of rope underneath a tall tree that didn't look used or weathered.

"Hey! Look, there it is! What I was telling you guys about! Right over there!" Sokka pointed excitedly at a large building not too far away.

"Finally. I was beginning to wonder if you were making it all up," Zuko said.

Sokka was grinning from ear to ear, "It's like we're the ghost busters, seeking out the undead and being super cool!"

"Did you even see the movie?" Zuko asked, his irritation impossible to hide anymore.

"No, but I don't have to be stupid to know what it's about."

"That doesn't-" Suki interjected Zuko's comment.

"Hey, we've been walking forever, and I'm actually pretty excited now! Can we stop this pointless arguing and race each other there?" she said, grinning.

"Last one there has to sign up for pep club with me!" Aang called out, and began running.